My Own Affairs

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Title: My Own Affairs

Author: Louise, Princess of Belgium

Release Date: July 3, 2013 [eBook #43086]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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MY OWN AFFAIRS

MY OWN AFFAIRS

By The Princess Louise of Belgium

With Photogravure Frontispiece and Eight Plates

Translated by Maude M. C. ffoulkes

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED

London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

1921

I DEDICATE

THIS BOOK TO

the Great Man, to the Great King, who was

MY FATHER

CONTENTS

LIST OF PLATES

My Own Affairs

CHAPTER I

Why I Write this Book

As the eldest daughter of a great man and a great King, whose magnificent intelligence has enriched his people, I owe nothing but misfortune to my royal origin. Ever since I was born I have suffered and been deceived. I have idealized Life too much.

In the evening of my days I do not wish to remain under the cloud of the false impression which is now prevalent concerning me.

Without desiring to allude too much to the past, and to retrace the road of my Calvary, I should like at least to borrow a few pages from my memories and reflections, inspired by events which have destroyed thrones in whose proximity I once lived. The Emperor of Austria, the German Emperor, the Tsar of Bulgaria were all familiar figures to me.

Driven to Munich by the War, then to Budapest, taken prisoner for a brief space by Hungarian Bolshevists, I have survived the European tempest, and I have seen all those who disowned and crushed me, beaten and punished.

And I trembled every day for my poor Belgium, so strong in her courage and her travail, but so unjust to me—oh no, not the people—the good people are naturally heroic and indefatigable. I refer to certain of their leaders, who have been misled on my account, and who are also, perhaps, too fond of money. Unjust themselves, they all equally violated justice by illicit interests which had the appearance of legality, as well as by the false attitude which appeared merely to be forgetfulness, but which was actually ingratitude.

My father has not yet had a monument erected to him in the country which he esteemed so highly; his Government has remembered the follies of his old age rather than its privileges, and his memory has suffered accordingly.

But what is past is past. My memory remains faithfully and affectionately attached to my native land; my sole thought is to love and honour her.

It is of Belgium that I wish to speak before passing on to the Courts of Vienna, Berlin, Munich and Sofia, and to the many doings which these names recall, certain of which deserve better knowledge and consideration.

I have never entertained any feelings for Belgium other than those of imperishable affection. The most painful of my reflections during the horrible war was that she was more to be pitied than I was.

On the day when I was being searched by Hungarian Bolshevists at Budapest I heard one of them say to another—having proved for himself the simplicity to which I was reduced: Here is a king's daughter who is poorer than I am. I have thought of the unhappy women of Ypres, of Dixmude, of France, Poland, Servia, and elsewhere—unfortunate creatures without fire or bread through the crime of war, and I have wept for them and not for myself.

More than one of them, perhaps, envied my position before 1914; little did they realize that I should have preferred theirs!

Married at seventeen, I expected to find in marriage the joys that a husband and children can give. I have had bitter proof to the contrary.

Rupture was inevitable where my own intimate feelings were concerned and those who surrounded me. I was too independent to make use of what was offensive to me.

Honours are often without honour, however high they may seem to be. Save for rare exceptions, fortune and power only develop in us the appetite for pleasure and urge us to depravity. Those whom La Bruyère calls the Great easily lose the knowledge of human conditions. Life is to them no longer the mysterious proof of the existence of a soul which will be eventually rewarded or punished according to its deserts. Religion seems to them only a mask or an instrument.

Led to judge their fellow-creatures through the flatteries, calculations, ambitions and treacheries by which they are surrounded, they arrive, through mistrust of human nature, at a state of indifference to God, and they accommodate His laws to their needs in the assurance of adjusting themselves with the Creator as they adjust their doings with their ministers.

When I review the past, and when I am reminded of the various phases of my unhappy existence, I never despair of ultimately finding a justice which I have not yet come across in this world; I have always believed that it exists somewhere. If it were not so, things would be inconceivable.

I owe this spirit of confidence to the lessons I learnt in my infancy, chiefly from those taught me by the Queen, my mother. Always endeavour to be a Christian, she used to say. I could not understand the import of these words when I was a child, but the misfortunes of my life have helped to explain them.

Stirred into revolt by humanity in so many ways, I have now submitted myself to a Superior Will, and I know the happiness of not hating my enemies. Pardon has always followed my rebellion.

I have never doubted that those who wronged me would be punished sooner or later on earth or elsewhere, and I have been sorry for my persecutors.

I have pitied them for their dislike of my frankness, because I am an enemy of all family and Court hypocrisy—I have pitied them for having censured my fidelity to one affection, and, above all, I have pitied their exaggeration of my disregard for that ancient idol—money!

Convinced as I was, and not without foundation, that immense wealth was to come, not only to myself but to my sisters, I maintained that our duty was to make full use of our resources. Was it not better to circulate money and assist trade? This opinion, however, was not shared either by a husband who was inclined to hoard or by a family who were afraid of any fresh ideas or customs, and who only saw in the aspirations of the masses an inevitable and horrible catastrophe against which they ought to protect themselves by saving as much as possible.

At the same time, when I have been engaged in a struggle I have never met with anything save cruel treatment on the part of my enemies (first and foremost by the slanders intended to ruin me in the eyes of the world), but I have hurled myself at the onset against all the obstacles which violence and enmity have conceived against me.

Being unable to live and act normally, and compelled by force and privations to treat what I held as despicable with obedience and respect, I lacked the means of existence to which I was entitled. The trouble I took in order to assure myself of my liberty on my native soil, in the order and dignity for which I had hoped, was nullified by those who were themselves morally responsible for it. I was compelled to become a prisoner or a fugitive, taken away and kept away from my rightful position by difficulties of every description. By these methods my enemies imagined that I should be more easily deprived of all to which I had clung.

What would have become of me had I not found a man who devoted himself to saving me from all kinds of snares and dangers, and who found devoted beings to second him—many of whom have sprung from the humbler ranks of life—I am unable to conjecture.

If I have known the wickedness of an aristocracy devoid of nobility, I have also benefited by the most chivalrous delicacy which has been extended to me by the populace, and my recognition of this is chiefly what I wish to write about to-day.

But deep in my heart I have the impelling desire not to allow the legend which has been created around meand my name to exist any longer.

CHAPTER II

My Beloved Belgium; my Family and Myself; Myself—as I Know Myself

If in an official procession the principal personage comes last, then Belgium should come last in my pages, for it is about myself that I must begin.

I decide to do so not without apprehension, for I remember the descriptions of themselves which celebrated writers of autobiography—Saint Simon, for instance—have given at the commencement of their memoirs.

Far be it from me to wish to paint myself in glowing colours. That would be a pretension from which the great writers who possessed the talent necessary to describe themselves preserve me. I only hope, if possible, to describe myself as I believe myself to be.

I often examine my heart. The older I grow the stronger this tendency to self-analysis becomes. Formerly I used to like to know my fellow-creatures; now I have discovered that one should always know oneself before attempting to decipher other human enigmas.

The ancient precept of Delphes, which the King my father used to quote, comes back to my memory, but I will not give it here. I do not understand modern Greek, unlike Queen Sophie, that charming woman, who was so misguided as to learn it; she lost her throne, so they say, through trying to outwit the subtlety of Ulysses!

My predominant quality is a horror of all that is insincere, inaccurate, formal and commonplace. My taste for simplicity in thought and actions branded me long ago as a revolutionary in the eyes of my family. This was when I rebelled in Vienna against the routine and what they called the esprit of the Court.

My passion for sincerity has brought me unity of thought. I am a woman faithful to one vow which my heart admits freely.

I have known and loved few individuals well enough to allow myself to approach them and know them thoroughly, but when once my confidence and liking have been given and found to be justified, I have become deeply attached to those on whom they were bestowed.

Many people would have liked to have seen me deprived of happiness, but I possess at least this one jewel—faithfulness, and I have known the sweetness thereof; not only the banal and material fidelity—always more or less a passing phase as one generally understands it—but the pure and noble fidelity which accompanies a vigilant and chivalrous mind; the ideal of noble hearts, which is revolted by injustice and attracted by misfortune. Diverse fidelities, although sisters, are marvellous treasures in which one must be rich oneself to be enabled further to enrich the future with precious gifts.

Firm in upholding my rights, and true to my convictions when I believe them to be in accordance with honour and truth—which spring from a divine essence—and are not inspired by hypocritical conventions, I am afraid of nothing, and nothing can convince me against my will.

I have inherited these traits from my father and my mother; from my mother I get the spiritual side, and from my father I get the material side of my character. It is useless, therefore, to believe that I should ever act against the dictates of my conscience.

If I am compelled to give way for a moment, I do so as one would yield at the point of the bayonet.

Wickedness and compulsion do not create equity, they only create its reservations, and redress to justice is from God alone and not from man.

This strength of resistance against evil and contempt of etiquette are, so to speak, the salient characteristics of my life.

But in spite of my decided opinions I show marked nervousness in the presence of strangers. When they are introduced to me I can hardly speak to them, even though their personality appeals to me.

My beloved compatriots in Brussels, the friends who are always present in my thoughts, used to say, Princess Louise is proud! What a mistake! On the contrary, I should have much liked to respond to the affection they offered me, and to have entered those Belgian homes that I knew to be so hospitable. Ah! what happiness not to have been born a king's daughter! One could then speak freely to fellow-creatures who merited sympathy; but a princess cannot do as she pleases.

With my entourage I am sometimes as open and expansive as I am silent and reserved with strangers. I mistrust fresh faces, and in no circumstances do I ever indulge in gossip. I much prefer the conversation of men who know something, to that of women who know nothing.

I detest all that is unnatural in conversation; affectation is insupportable to me. Idle remarks which annoy me easily suggest some repartee or sarcastic comment such as the King knew so well how to use, which always touched to the quick the person to whom it was addressed. But the influence of the Queen's memory sometimes restrains me and keeps me silent out of Christian charity.

Immovable in the convictions of my conscience and outwardly reserved, I am, nevertheless, a woman of contradictions. When I am forced to act I invariably rush to extremes. Soul extremes always result from contrasts, just as the thunder of heaven results from the meeting of two storm clouds. In me the storm is suppressed. I surprise people more than anything else by my customary attitude of not being able to foresee the decision which carries me away.

I do not regard existence from the ordinary standpoint; I regard it from a much higher one. This is not due to any feeling of pride. I am carried away by something within me past certain barriers and certain frontiers; I live in a world of my own in which I can take refuge.

Many, many times during the implacable persecution which I have endured for so long, I have stood in front of a mirror and tried to read the soul within my eyes. I was a prisoner; I was mad for reasons of State. I asked myself in cold blood, was I not really becoming mad—was I still mistress of my reason?

Yes, replied an inner voice, you are mistress of your reason so long as you are mistress of yourself, and you are mistress of yourself so long as you remain faithful to your ideal of honour.

I will speak of this ideal later. Honest women will understand. But my nature did not find in the conjugal abode the good, the pure and the true, which it had dreamed of, hoped for, and desired. As the years passed the atmosphere of my home changed, the growing children became less of a safeguard. Help came in a day of chaos under an aspect which the world condemns. Nothing stopped me then, and, henceforth, nothing shall separate me from my ideal. I have done away with the gilded splendour which to me is shameful. I live now with that which speaks to me in a language I can understand, something which is morally beautiful. This act of my inner self is now realized. I have not repented. I never shall.

Dramas, plots, intrigues, treason follow each other—I struggle against them without triumphing. It is the work of my outward self. I may appear to fail, but my inner self turns away disgusted from the mud.

I was not made to conquer in the fray of human conflicts in a sphere which is, perhaps, that of creatures predestined to show that the real condition of man is not here below. The society that he extols, the civilization that he admires, are but the poor and fragile conceptions of his illusion of earthly sovereignty, and they will only bring misfortune to him if he lives for them alone.

God was always present in my thoughts even when I believed myself forgotten by man.

I have had, like every creature who has been crushed by false witness, my hours of doubt and despair. The grievance against me at the Coburg Palace and in Vienna was that I would not conform to the outward practice of religion after I had seen all its double-facedness and mock devotion. I often refused to go to the chapel and accept as fitting the outward piety which to me was sacrilege. I went to seek God and the Holy Virgin in some solitary and humble church far from the Hofburg and my palace.

I have also known the time when at the bidding of my rebellious soul I turned from heaven. Suffering, experience and meditation have led me back to the Divine Master whose love was taught me by my beloved mother. I believe I shall reach His presence by a road which resembles Calvary. It is an uphill road, but He raises me; and so rugged is it, that at every turning I forget the world a little more and I stretch out my arms towards the love and justice of God.

*       *       *       *       *

They have said that I was beautiful. I inherit from my father my upright figure, and I have also something of his features and his expression.

I inherit from my mother a certain capacity for dreaming, which enables me to take refuge in myself, and when a conversation does not interest me, or if anyone or anything troubles me, I instantly seek sanctuary in the secret chamber of my soul.

But my eyes betray me, and the effort I make to return to everyday life gives me the expression of a fugitive—this is a great peculiarity of mine.

The colour of my eyes is a clear brown, which reflects those of the Queen and the King, but more particularly those of the King. Like him, I am able to change my voice from softness to a certain hard brilliance. The golden ears of corn are not more golden than was once my golden hair; to-day it is silver.

I speak like the King, but somewhat slower than he did, in the two languages I chiefly employ—which are equally familiar to me—French and German.